Sansho the Bailiff (Japanese:
山椒大夫Sanshō Dayū) is a 1954 film by Japanesefilm directorKenji
Mizoguchi. Based on a short story of the same name by Mori
Ogai, it tells the story of two aristocratic children sold into
slavery. It is often considered one of Mizoguchi's finest films,
along with Ugetsu and
The Life
of Oharu. It bears his trademark interest in freedom,
poverty and woman's place in society, and features beautiful images
and long and complicated shots. The director of photography for
this film was Mizoguchi's regular collaborator Kazuo
Miyagawa.

Contents

Synopsis

Sansho the Bailiff is a jidai-geki, or
historical film, set in the Heian period of feudal Japan. A
virtuous governor is banished by a feudal lord to a far-off
province. His wife and children are sent to live with her brother.
Several years later, the wife, Tamaki (Kinuyo Tanaka), and children, Zushio and
Anju, journey to his exiled land, but are tricked on the journey by
a hypocritical priestess and sold into slavery and prostitution.
The mother and her servant are sold to Sado. The children are sold by slave
traders to a manorial estate in which slaves are brutalized,
working under horrific conditions and are branded whenever they try
to escape. The estate, protected under the Minister of Right, is
administered by the eponymous Sansho (Eitarô Shindô), a bailiff (or steward). Sansho's son Taro (Akitake Kôno), the
second-in-charge, is a much more humane master, and he convinces
the two they must survive in the manor before they can escape to
find their father.

The children grow to young adulthood at the slave camp. Anju (Kyôko Kagawa) still believes in the
teachings of her father, who advocated treating others with
humanity, but Zushio (Yoshiaki Hanayagi) has repressed his
humanity, becoming one of the overseers who punishes other slaves,
in the belief that this is the only way to survive.

Anju hears a song from a new slave girl from Sado which mentions
her and her brother in the lyrics. This leads her to believe their
mother is still alive. She tries to convince Zushio to escape, but
he refuses, citing the difficulty and their lack of money.

Zushio is ordered to take Namiji, an older woman, out of the
slave camp to be left to die in the wilderness due to her sickness.
Anju accompanies them, and while they two break branches to provide
covering for the dying woman they recall their earlier childhood
memories. At this point Zushio changes his mind and asks Anju to
escape with him to find their mother. Anju asks him to take Namiji
with him, convincing her brother she will stay behind to distract
the guards. Zushio promises to return for Anju. However, after
Zushio's escape, Anju commits suicide by walking into a lake so
that she will not be forced to reveal her brother's
whereabouts.

After Zushio escapes in the wilderness, and finds his old
mentor, Taro - Sansho’s son - at an Imperial temple. Zushio asks
Taro to take care of Namiji, who is recovering after being given
medicine, so that he can go to Kyoto to appeal to the Chief Advisor on the
appalling conditions of slaves. Taro writes him a letter as proof
of who he is.

Although initially rejecting to see him, the Chief Advisor
realizes the truth after seeing a statuette from Zushio. He then
tells Zushio that his exiled father died the year before and offers
Zushio the post of the governor of Tango, the very province where
Sansho's manor is situated in.

As Governor of Tango the first thing Zushio does is to order an
edict forbidding slavery both on public and private grounds. No one
believes he can do this, since Governors have no command over
private grounds; although Sansho offers initial resistance, Zushio
orders him and his minions arrested, thus freeing the slaves. When
he looks for Anju among Sansho's slaves, he finds out his sister
has sacrificed herself for his freedom. The manor is burned down by
the ex-slaves, while Sansho and his family are exiled. To appease
the Ministry for doing something so radical, Zushio resigns
immediately afterwards, stating that he has done exactly what he
aims to do.

Zushio leaves for Sado where he searches for his mother, who is
now a courtesan, he believes. After hearing a man states that she
has died in a tsunami, he
goes to the very beach she is supposed to have died. He finds a
blind, decrepit old woman sitting at the beach singing the same
song he hears years before. Realizing she is his mother, he reveals
to her his identity, but Tamaki assumes he is a trickster until he
gives her their statuette. Zushio tells her both Anju and their
father have died, and apologizes for not coming for her in the pomp
of his governor's post. He tells her he has been true to his
father's teachings. The film ends with her poignant
acknowledgement.

Reception

Sansho was the last of Mizoguchi's films to win an
award at the Venice Film Festival, which
brought him to the attention of Western critics and film-makers. It
is greatly revered by many critics; The New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane wrote in
his September, 2006 profile on Mizoguchi, "I have seen
Sansho only once, a decade ago, emerging from the cinema a
broken man but calm in my conviction that I had never seen anything
better; I have not dared watch it again, reluctant to ruin the
spell, but also because the human heart was not designed to weather
such an ordeal."[1]

Stage
Production

In 1990 producers Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau
{Streamers,
The Thin
Red Line) commissioned director Terrence Malick to write a stage play
based on Sansho the Bailiff. A private workshop of the
play was undertaken in fall 1993 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
It was directed by Andrzej Wajda with sets and costumes by
Eiko Ishioka,
lighting by Jennifer Tipton, sound by Hans Peter
Kuhn, choreography by Suzushi Hanayagi, and a large all-Asian cast.
A smaller scale workship was mounted by Geisler-Roberdeau under
Malick's own direction in Los Angeles in spring 1994. Plans to
produce the play on Broadway were postponed indefinitely.